Predictions of Ridiculousness

Last year towards the tail end of the season I charted the Sox’ path to 92 wins.  In what turned out to be a bit of serendipity the Sox in fact wound up with 92 wins on the dot (thank you Raffy Devers).  With that bit of good luck I had planned on doing a semi-tongue in cheek prediction for 2022.  I didn’t quite get around to it but what the hell, 16 games isn’t that far.  With that in mind here is my 2022 Boston Red Sox prediction!  It will likely be fun to see how accurate the overall is (I ...

The First Big Test

The 2021 Red Sox were in many ways a bully team.  They had their way with lesser opponents finishing with the third best record in the league against sub-.500 teams but the 7th best against teams over .500.  They also led the league in games played against teams over .500 (94) courtesy of their division.  Not much is changing schedule-wise in 2022 with the AL East being a grind so if the Sox want to ascend to last year’s success they will need to beat the best.  After a relatively mild early ...

A Lovely Day and a Lousy Game

Well the good news was as Opening Days go that one was a humdinger weather wise.  It was absolutely gorgeous in the ballpark which looks fantastic.  Looks like they’ve done some pretty aggressive painting and cleaning and Fenway is in wonderful shape for a 110 year old girl.  When I arrived at the ballpark I made a beeline for the new section above the bleachers in right center field.  I have to say based on a ten minute stroll up there…I am going to make it my business to catch a game from ...

Some Thoughts on the First Series

This is genuinely just a series of random thoughts;

- This weekend really was a microcosm of this team.  The top of the lineup looked solid save for Kiké (and I really need the e with the accent to be easier to access on my iPad).  They need to get some help at the bottom of the order.  Particularly on Friday the bottom of the order seemed to be leaving a small village out there.  The starters looked good I thought.  Houck struggled to put people away a bit but the Yankees didn’t really do ...

(Just About) 48 Hours to Go

It’s almost go time for the local nine, the carmine hose, the old towne team, that’s right, the Boston Red Sox get back at it at 1PM in the Bronx on Thursday.  A few scattered thoughts between now and then;

THE ROSTER (assuming no injuries or trades);

Infield: Bobby Dalbec, Travis Shaw, Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Jonathan Arauz, Christian Arroyo
Outfield: Kiké Hernandez, Alex Verdugo, Jackie Bradley Jr.
Catcher: Christian Vazquez, Kevin Plawecki
DH: JD Martinez
Rotation: ...

Over and Under

With just Ted Williams days until Opening Day for the 2022 season I thought I’d throw out a few non-sensical over/unders for the Boston Red Sox for this season.

Team Wins - 86.5 - I’m a bit hesitant to be super-optimistic about this team.  Part of it is I still have concerns about the pitching staff and part of it is the American League East is going to devour itself.  I think there are four teams in the division that are true 90 win talent teams but because those four teams will play 57 games ...

Things Have Happened

So while I was driving 1,543 miles in two days Chaim Bloom decided to get busy.  After a somewhat frustrating stretch as big names fell off the free agent board he dropped big money on infielder Trevor Story.  I’m a bit conflicted here because I suspect it means that Xander Bogaerts’ time with the club is dwindling.  I think something in me has changed over the last couple of years and having had the good fortune to see four World Series titles I’m a bit more interested in players I want to ...

Report From The Fort

I would love to be able to give you guys some interesting stuff from my two visits this week to Fort Myers but I have little to report. On Tuesday it was just the big club working out, the minor leaguers were “in with the sheriff” according to one of the security guards which I assume is kind of like a start of semester meeting with the RD when you go live in a college dorm.  Then today I don’t know where the minor leaguers were but again, it was the big boys on the back fields.


The ...

The Lockout Files - Rostering

With the players and owners finally in some sort of agreement on a new CBA (162 game season, 12 team playoff) the Hot Stove League is about to become a spectacular sprint.  With that in mind I thought it would be useful to step back and take a quick look at where the hell the Red Sox stand roster wise as of today.

1B - Bobby Dalbec
2B - Christian Arroyo
3B - Rafael Devers
SS - Xander Bogaerts
LF - Jarren Duran
CF - Kiké Hernandez
RF - Alex Verdugo
C - Christian Vazquez
DH - JD Martinez

IF - ...

The Lockout Files - ALDS MVPs

Have I done this before? I don’t think I have.  Anyway, if I have my apologies but there ain’t much to talk about so let’s revisit the theory.

So of course we all know about the ALCS and World Series MVPs, but for some reason the various League Division Series don’t select an MVP.  The Boston Red Sox have won eight LDSes since the 1995 advent of that series and I thought it would be a fun trip down memory lane to pick an MVP from each of those series;

1999 - Pedro Martinez - This would have ...

The Lockout Files - Spring Training

Well the big news in baseball of course is spring training.  Late February, all eyes have turned toward spring training and nothing else.  NOTHING ELSE.  Anyway, I know you are all especially interested to hear what I am looking forward to my trip to sunny Florida in ten days and I thought I’d share that with you.

Going to Games - Last year was the first time since…god 1999? that I hadn’t attended a Spring Training game and frankly 2020 camp was a pretty morose place on the heels of the Mookie ...

David Ortiz - Postseason Hero, Clutch God, HALL OF FAMER

Sleep tight, you couldn’t count the cost through the night
‘Cause it’s not right, it never was right
Come a long, long
Come a long, long way

The words belong to Simple Minds but they are so true of David Americo Ortiz Arias.  He started as a minor leaguer with the Mariners where he began what would be a career long tradition of whooping Alex Rodriguez, then in a Home Run Derby.  He went to Minnesota where after parts of six seasons he was deemed superfluous and young GM Theo Epstein was ...

The Lockout Files - Jon Lester Hangs ‘Em Up

After 16 years, 200 wins and three World Series titles Jon Lester is hanging up his spikes.  I have to admit I never really warmed to Jon Lester.  He always had an A-Rodian quality of seeming fake.  I never got the impression he was someone I would want to hang out with, have a beer and shoot the ####.  But hot damn could the man pitch.  Lester was an old school starter taking the ball every fifth day and stubbornly grinding it out making 30+ starts twelve years in a row. Of course when ...

The Lockout Files - What Could’ve Been

I hope everyone had a nice holiday season and you and yours are safe and healthy.  Hopefully 2022 will be a better year for all of us.

With that out of the way I thought I might kill a little time with a “What Could’ve Been” team from my lifetime.  What I’m talking about should become clear fairly quickly;

1B - Nick Esasky - We start with a twofer.  What if the Sox kept big Nick and what if he stayed healthy.  With all due respect to Carlos Quintana (and who didn’t love Q) imagine the ...

Locked Out and Semi-Loaded

Chaim Bloom finished the pre-lockout period with something of a bang acquiring left-handed starter Rich Hill then in something of a shocker trading outfielder Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers for outfielder and 2018 ALCS MVP Jackie Bradley Jr and minor leaguers David Hamilton and Alex Binelas.  Bradley will get the attention here but Binelas is likely to focal point of the trade from the Sox’ perspective.  Binelas is a bit of a Bradley-like figure in that he entered his final college season as a ...

Thanks Jerry

Longtime Red Sox player and announcer Jerry Remy has passed away at the age of 68 from lung cancer.  RemDawg was the classic case of local boy makes good.  He grew up in Fall River and after starting his career with the then California Angels he was acquired prior to the 1978 season in exchange for young right handed pitcher Don Aase.  I turned 8 years old during that memorable season and Remy quickly became one of my favorite players.  On a team laden with slugging right-handed bats Remy was ...

Five Dumb Trades

Hey, let’s have a thread where everyone tells me how dumb I am!  Rather than just say “hey the Sox should get better players” I’m going to put five trades out there.  It is highly likely that these are dumb trades for someone but hey, it’s a place to start as we look at the off-season.

Red Sox Get: 1B Matt Olson
Athletics Get: 1B Bobby Dalbec, RHP Bryan Bello, 3B Blaze Jordan, RHP Connor Seabold

Sox Do It Because: Olson is a terrific player and under club control for three more seasons.  He’s ...

Meet the 2022 Red Sox

OK, enough waiting, it was a lovely weekend but now it’s on with the show.  After a 92 win season that culminated with a thrilling, memorable playoff run to the LCS we can start to look ahead to 2022.  The future should be bright for the Boston Red Sox with manager Alex Cora firmly entrenched now (do NOT re-read this post thanks) and Chaim Bloom looking like a guy who can pull the right triggers at the right time Sox fans rightly feel pretty good about where they stand in what looks like a very ...

What a Ride

Well that was a hell of a ride wasn’t it?  I guess it had to end at some point but my goodness you can’t ask for much more. Beyond that they are incredibly well situated for the future.  Chaim Bloom’s work to rebuild the system is proceeding apace and two years after trading one of the great players in franchise history, a move so many of us saw as a harbinger of disaster, that they’ve returned to the LCS should tell us that this team that has been so brilliant for the last two ...

The Boston Red Sox Will Play for the Pennant

In April 15 American League teams began their quest for the World Series.  Three of them are left standing and kids, the Boston Red Sox are one of them after a grinding 6-5 victory over a genuinely terrific Tampa Bay Rays team.  The praise for the Rays can’t be overstated, they are a hell of a team and are worthy of all the salutations.

But for now, the celebration is here with the local nine.  They.  Do.  Not.  Get.  Rattled.  This team has had so many chances to roll over and you know ...

Minors Making Major Moves Man

Well the Major League club will continue playing baseball after Tuesday’s thrilling Wild Card victory over the third place Yankees but the minor league season has largely concluded with just some Arizona Fall League baseball to follow.  With that in mind I thought a look at the system as it stands was in order.  The prospect hounds have been pretty positive about the state of the Red Sox system as the Sox saw real movement forward from many in their system.

The Good:

The biggest positive for ...

This Is Fun

Unbelievable.  All of us, and yeah I’m part of that, have underestimated this team all year and they showed us all what they can do.  Facing the presumptive AL Cy Young winner they chased him in exactly the same amount of time as Roger Clemens in the “Where is Roger?” Game.*. Xander Bogaerts who has been struggling of late came to life with the big homer and the hot Alex Verdugo did it again with a three RBI night including getting a good bounce in the corner that had Tony Clark saying ...

PLAYOFFS!

Unbelievable.  For the first time in their 121 year history the Sox will play a Wild Card game.  This will feature Nathan Eovaldi facing Gerrit Cole of the third place Yankees.  I can only wish Johnny Pesky could have lived to have seen a Wild Card game at Fenway.  Playing a Wild Card game is the dream of every young man.

OK, jokes aside I’m thinking of what MCoA wrote after the 2013 World Series.  This team, this ####### team. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy but man they came through.  ...

So Here We Are

The final weekend is here. The Sox dropped the ball pretty aggressively in Baltimore as the bats continued their silence from the previous weekend.  There is really not a lot of analysis to be done at this point, the Sox need to play well in Washington.  Given results this week things are a lot more difficult than they need to be but the fact is with game 160 tonight the Boston Red Sox still have their destiny in their hands.  As a practical matter some scoreboard watching will be in order.

I ...

That Didn’t Go Well, But The Situation Is Still Very Good

That didn’t go entirely well but it’s not nearly a disaster either.  As I said prior to the series that was a lot bigger for the Yankees than it was for the Sox and I said that assuming the Blue Jays would sweep the Twins rather than splitting with them.

The Sox magic number is now 6 for a Wild Card berth (8 to take out the Yankees).  All in all the situation is still good. The Sox fundamentally have their fate in their hands.  Winning four out of six in Baltimore and Washington is more ...

OK, Let’s Play Scenarios

OK, with tonight’s results in the books the Sox are locked in at worst being a game out on Monday morning with the knowledge that a win Tuesday would bring them even with whoever loses the Yankee/Blue Jay first game.  That’s a huge advantage for the Sox right now.  Looking at some scenarios the Sox should realistically be looking at 93 wins as a bare minimum (5-4 against NYY, Baltimore and Washington) shouldn’t be a big ask.  That requires the Yankees to go 7-2 and Toronto 8-2 to get ...

It’s A Sprint, Not A Marathon

After 5 1/2 eventful months with more than enough drama and excitement the Red Sox have reached the stage of the season where the age-old adage about a baseball season being a marathon not a sprint has turned on its head.  The Sox now have 14 games in 17 days to determine if they are a playoff team or not. 

In simple terms the 2021 season is already a huge success but the time for postmortems will come as will the time to look ahead.  For now a few random thoughts to kickoff a new thread and ...

Shrug

There hasn’t been much to add in a new thread lately.  The discussion is rolling as the Sox have tried their best to give us plenty to gripe about.  To say the last week of baseball hasn’t been ideal is hard to argue.  The Sox got swept in a frustrating series in the Bronx and have split so far with Texas.  I think SBPT has laid out a lot of good reasons to reel in our emotions about the recent play by the Sox that is not the nature of fandom.  I’ve been as frustrated as anyone even while ...

Things to Feel Good About

I think we can safely describe that road trip as “not good.”  I know I’m out on a limb here but I’m going to say 2-8 is not quite as good as the Sox hoped for the road trip.  Making it worse was that during their closest foes in division were rolling (in no small part to slapping the Sox around for two of the teams);

Tampa 7-2
Toronto 9-2
New York 8-2
Boston 2-8

Suffice to say that’s not great and the eyeball test certainly doesn’t scream “everything is fine.”  The team ...

A Game Out Of First

Sometimes it’s just good to remind yourself, the Boston Red Sox are one (1) game out of first place and five games up on a Wild Card spot.  If you had told me the Sox would be here at the two-thirds mark of the season back in April I would have laughed, caught my breath, and laughed again.

So why does it feel so crummy at the moment?

Well that’s the easy answer; because they are playing like it’s 2020 all over again.  Actually that’s not fair, in 2020 they were fairly entertaining at times.  ...